LOVERS by Shan

Naomi Sharon is an R&B singer-songwriter, the first woman signed to Drake's OVO Sound label, and the voice behind Obsidian — an album she wrote, she says, while stuck in a loop she didn't yet have a name for. Her new single is "No Sleep in Paradise," and it turns out to be a more accurate self-portrait than she realized when she wrote it.

This conversation starts with that song title and follows it somewhere much harder. Naomi opens up about ROCD (Relationship OCD) — a form of OCD rooted, for her, in her parents' divorce at 12, the lie she found out about, and the trust that cracked in a way that never fully sealed. She describes what it actually does inside a relationship: the reassurance-seeking that exhausts even a loving partner, the rumination that colonizes every quiet moment, the specific experience of standing onstage mid-performance and suddenly being flooded with thoughts about whether he still loves her. And then the harder question underneath all of it — whether what she's feeling is her intuition or her fear, and what it costs not to be able to tell the difference.

This one is for anyone who has ever been told to just let it go and discovered that wasn't something they could do.

Want to learn more about OCD?

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) →⁠ https://iocdf.org/⁠

Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) →⁠ https://adaa.org/⁠

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) →⁠ https://www.nami.org/⁠

Mental Health America (MHA) →⁠ https://mhanational.org/⁠

Follow Naomi Sharon

Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/naomisharon⁠

YouTube:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@naomisharonmusic⁠

TikTok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@naomisharon⁠

No Sleep in Paradise:⁠ https://ovo-naomisharon.ffm.to/nsip⁠

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram →⁠ http://instagram.com/shanboodram⁠

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter⁠

Join the Lovers Community →⁠ https://www.loversbyshan.com/community⁠

Explore free quizzes + worksheets →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes⁠

Advertising & Other Inquiries: team@loversbyshan.com
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Tanerélle is a singer-songwriter whose voice sits somewhere between neo-soul and quiet revelation, with singles like feels like love and Nothing Without You building a devoted audience around the specific ache of loving someone more than they love you back. In this episode, she and Shan trace the song feels like love from its origin — a late-night phone call with an ex that felt like home until Tanerélle realized she was the only one feeling it — through the larger question of what it means to be someone's muse instead of their person, and why those two things can feel identical from the inside until they don't.

They also talk about what OCD and rumination actually do inside a relationship when safety isn't there, the slow way gender roles and social conditioning closed the door on the free version of herself she showed up as early on, and the specific kind of loneliness that comes from being the one who always reaches out first. This one is for anyone who has ever loved out loud in a situation that didn't love them back the same way and wondered whether that still counted as real.

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Thanks to Stasis for sponsoring this video. Hold your stimulant to a higher standard — go to ⁠https://yt.link/K1ZEZNN⁠ and use code LOVERS for 15% off your first order.

I'm sharing this in my personal capacity. Always speak with your own healthcare provider about what's right for you. #ad #StasisPartner

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Follow Tanerélle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanerelle

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxqYnbQ6uCZhsanm43Jk6zA

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tanerelle

Feels like love: https://open.spotify.com/track/6N5i4aUjLphRd77qlkpqdO

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Advertising & Other Inquiries: team@loversbyshan.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are three forms of intimacy every relationship runs on — and most couples only know two of them. Emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and the one nobody has named yet: social intimacy, which is the degree to which your partner actively represents, claims, and advocates for you in the rooms and relationships that matter. Not just privately, when it's easy, but publicly, when it costs something.

This episode is Shan and Jared Brady sitting down to have that conversation for real — because as a public-figure couple in an open relationship where the woman is the financial lead, social intimacy isn't abstract for them, it's load-bearing. They work through what it actually looks like when your partner stops bringing you up, why that quietly erodes a relationship from the outside in, and what the research says about how much your partner's behavior in public spaces shapes your career, your network, and your sense of self.

If you've ever felt invisible in someone else's life while being completely loved in theirs, this one is for you.

Access our interactive social intimacy worksheet: https://www.loversbyshan.com/resource/social-intimacy-check-in-relationship-worksheet

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Want More Jared https://www.instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClhYIBYFJZpdth_C8hOoy5Q

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Ericka Hart (she/they) is a sex educator, author, and breast cancer survivor who has spent their career arguing that pleasure isn't a luxury — it's a right that's been systematically withheld from Black, brown, queer, and disabled bodies.

In this conversation, Erica and Shan trace the throughline from childhood activism that was never a choice, to being expelled from Peace Corps for loving who they loved, to the night they disclosed a double mastectomy mid-hookup and got the response that became their whole love story: "titties, I don't care." They talk about going topless at Afropunk and getting turned into "inspiration porn" instead of being seen as desirable, and about the gap between the two: being praised for surviving versus being wanted for who you actually are.

Erica shares what it actually means to write a book,  Nasty Work, for the most marginalized people, because when you center the people the world has held least, everybody gets to see themselves.

This is a conversation about reclaiming a body the world has always tried to act on instead of let you inhabit, and what it costs, and what it feels like, to do that work on your own terms, even when it's still in progress.

Follow Ericka Hart

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ihartericka/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ihartericka1Website: https://ihartericka.com/

Book: Nasty Work: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238226976-nasty-work

Listen to Hoodrat to Headwrap (with Ebony Donnley): https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/hoodrat-to-headwrap-a-decolonized-podcast/id1279429651 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks to Stasis for sponsoring this video. Hold your stimulant to a higher standard — go to https://yt.link/iD6LFRL and use code LOVERS for 15% off your first order. I'm sharing this in my personal capacity. Always speak with your own healthcare provider about what's right for you. #ad #StasisPartner

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Ezee (also known as Young Ezee) is an Atlanta-based comedian, actor, and content creator with over 6.6 million followers across platforms, known for her signature stud energy, her queer-centric digital shows, and her upcoming stand-up special Another Little Lesbian.

This conversation goes somewhere most relationship content doesn't: the specific weight of being the one who always has to hold it together — not because you're a man, but because you look like one. Ezee talks about what it cost her to suppress her emotions to fit a role her partners assigned based on how she presents, the moment she realized she'd been leaking that suppression as rage instead of tears, and how her relationship with her fiancée Natalie became the first place she felt genuinely safe to be a full woman. Woven through all of it is a double-proposal story that ends up being the most precise illustration possible of what it looks like when someone refuses to let the person they love go unseen.

This one is for anyone who has ever been handed a script they didn't write and loved someone hard enough to finally put it down.

Follow Ezee

https://www.instagram.com/ezee

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@youngezee

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ezee

Follow Andrea Lewis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrealewis/?hl=en

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrealewischannel

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@missandrealewis?lang=en 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices